BERRIE, DAVID - AIRPLANE TO MADRID

David Berrie has played innumerable bold-face-name parties for the likes of Diddy, Kanye West, 50 Cent, Gisele Bundchen, and Pharrell Williams. He’s a staple at the most exclusive nightclubs around the world. Top promoters and music aficionados across the globe seek him out. It’s nice work if you can get it, but for David Berrie none of it truly matters. “I know it sounds corny,” David Berrie says, “but what really matters to me is making great music—music that reaches people, music with integrity, music that makes people dance.” The unassuming 24-year old goes on to cite a constellation of luminary DJs who have inspired him early on: Carl Cox, Louie Vega, and Danny Tenaglia. Which begs the question, what gives this young, talented upstart the gumption to name-check such DJ royalty in conjunction with himself? Hard work and talent. David Berrie wasn’t born with a silver slipmat on his 1200s. His mother, a Korean immigrant, and his father, the son of Bronx-based Russian immigrants, settled in Englewood, NJ. His dad was the marketing genius behind those ubiquitous Troll dolls. His parents made him study classical piano and violin years before he got his decks. He reached that milestone at the tender age of 13 with two Technics and a used Vestax mixer. “My older sister originally turned me onto hip-hop,” David Berrie explains. “I got really into golden-era late-80s and early-90s Native Tongues stuff — A Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul, Brand Nubian and other artists like KRS-One, EPMD, and Rakim.” His love of music and his enterprising ways found full expression in his thriving junior high school business making CD mixes for classmates. “It was my first experience curating music,” he says. “It was going great, until the principle called me into his office…” As hip-hop in the late-90s became increasingly commercialized, David Berrie found refuge in the underground. “I started getting more and more into house music,” he explains. “I started discovering DJs like Danny Krivit and Frankie Knuckles, and Larry Levan. I began loading up on classic wax from Fat Beats and Satellite Records.” At 16, after endless hours spent in his basement learning how to mix, cut, scratch, fade, and beat juggle, this self-taught DJ landed his first paying club gig. “I was in the city with friends at a club in Chelsea called Dorsia,” David recalls. One of my friends randomly went up to the waiter and told him I DJ’d. The manager came over and asked me to bring in my mix. I spent an entire week working on it. They loved it and put me on.” At the time, David was still too young to drive and his mother had to shuttle him to gigs. College at Boston University, more than anything else, proved to be just another opportunity for David to hone his craft. Even with his R.A. forcing him to remove his turntables from his dorm room, the young collegian built a strong following in Boston that he enjoys today. “Boston is great,” he says, “but I needed to be in New York, the original foundation of my musical taste.” Back in the city David’s aspirations and masterful skills quickly took him from small rooms to the country’s most high-profile nightclubs including Tao Las Vegas, Pacha and Webster Hall in New York, and Miami’s Liv. Soon he became the go-to DJ for international high-profile parties playing for luxury brands like Fendi and Cartier and traveling to London, France, Italy, Spain, Mexico, and Croatia. Though he doesn’t like to talk about it, David’s style didn’t go unnoticed; US Weekly recently named him one of “The 25 Most Stylish New Yorkers.” Most importantly, however, was that David Berrie started recording original tracks. Patrick Moxey, President and CEO of dance music mega-label Ultra Records, only needed to hear two of David’s tracks to sign him. Bangers like his debut single “Take A Minute” and remixes of Kaskade’s “Dynasty” and Morgan Page’s “Fight For You” will make you ecstatic that he did. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.